A diseased or damaged tooth may be sensitive to some material or chemical, a common one being sugar. Patients and dentists can have particular difficulty determining exactly which tooth is or was hurting since that part of the mouth, unlike the lips, does not have separate nerve spacings to discriminate between closely spaced points, and small cracks and holes in a tooth or filling may be difficult or impossible to find by visual or X-ray inspection.
A similar problem may exist with a tooth sensitive to pressure rather than, or in addition to, a material. Solutions to finding the pressure sensitive tooth have been solved, at least in part, by devices which enable applying pressure to only one tooth at a time. U.S. Pat. No. 4,828,494, assigned to Dental Design Systems, Inc., has a ball at one end of a plastic handle. The ball has indentations on opposite sides to receive the ends of cusps of opposing teeth of a patient, who can apply pressure by biting down. Another device on the market is the Tooth Slooth.RTM. which has a small tetrahedron at the head with an indented apex. Neither of these devices provide nor suggest means for testing sensitivity to a material or chemical, for example, sugar.
An object of the subject invention is to provide a simple, rapid and inexpensive means and method for identifying a diseased or damaged tooth with a crack, loose or damaged filling, or other defect allowing an opening to the sensitive inner portion of the tooth, and sensitive to a material or chemical such as sugar or other sweet, salt, acidic, or other offending material or chemical, as well as, perhaps, sensitive to pressure. Other objects will be apparent from the descriptions of the invention.